Teacher Trek

Investing Activities

Meet the Wall Street Journal

Purpose:

Students learn how to find news about business and finance in the Wall Street Journal.

Materials:

Wall Street Journal 1 per student (or 1 per 2 students)

Highlighters 1 per student

Instructions:

Ask your class if they have ever heard of Wall Street. Explain that Wall Street is a famous street in New York City. Some people say Wall Street is the financial capital of the world. For more than 100 years, entrepreneurs have been going to Wall Street to raise money to start companies and launch new products and services.
The New York Stock Exchange is located on Wall Street. A stock exchange is a place where buyers and sellers meet to negotiate the prices of stocks and bonds. Companies who want to raise money sell stocks and bonds, and people who want to invest money buy stocks and bonds. Stockbrokers are the licensed agents who handle these financial transactions.
(Give each student a copy of the WSJ.) One way to be informed about what is happening on Wall Street is to read the Wall Street Journal. Every issue of the WSJ has three sections: A, B, and C. Section A contains articles about the world of business and finance. In the second column of the front page, there are summaries of the main stories inside Section A.
Have the students take a few minutes to browse Section A and use their highlighters to mark stories that look most interesting to them.
Then discuss some of the news stories in Section A. Talk about how knowledge about national and world economic events and trends can help them make business decisions.